American-made the enduring legacy of the WPA : when FDR put the nation to work

Taylor, Nick 1945- (Author).

Summary: When President Roosevelt took the oath of office in 1933, he was facing a devastated nation. Four years into the Great Depression, 13 million American workers were jobless. What people wanted were jobs, not handouts, and in 1935, after a variety of temporary relief measures, a permanent nationwide jobs program was created--the Works Progress Administration, which would forever change the physical landscape and the social policies of the United States. The WPA lasted for eight years, spent $11 billion, and employed 8 and a half million men and women. The agency combined the urgency of putting people back to work with a vision of physically rebuilding America. Its workers laid roads, erected dams, bridges, tunnels, and airports, but also performed concerts, staged plays, and painted murals. Sixty years later, there is almost no area in America that does not bear some visible mark of its presence.--From publisher description.

Record details

ISBN: 9780553904932 (electronic bk. : Adobe Reader)
ISBN: 0553904930 (electronic bk. : Adobe Reader)
ISBN: 9780553904932 (electronic bk. : Mobipocket Reader)
ISBN: 0553904930 (electronic bk. : Mobipocket Reader)
Physical Description: electronic resource
remote
viii, 630 p., [32] p. of plates : ill. ; 25 cm.
Publisher: New York : Bantam Book, 2008.

Content descriptions

General Note:	Title from eBook information screen.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (p. [551]-555) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	In extremis -- Hope on the rise -- The dawn of the WPA -- Folly and triumph -- The arts programs -- The phantom of recovery -- The WPA under attack -- WPA: War reparation Agency -- The legacy of the WPA -- Glossary.
System Details Note:	Requires Adobe Digital Editions (file size: 2037 KB) or Mobipocket Reader (file size: 658 KB).